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TEHRAN – Throughout history, humans have had a strong interest in imagining tomorrow’s world and its potential. The concept has been imaginatively translated into literature through the genre of science fiction.
Unlike utopian visions, science fiction stories often depict a future that is far from peaceful or perfect, with scenarios such as alien invasions, evil empires, authoritarian dystopias, and the exploration and colonization of new territories. It is often depicted and sometimes closely resembles the past. than the future.
Colonist in colonized clothes
Both “Dracula” and “War of the Worlds” are stories of colonists who are themselves colonized by superior races. This feature places them in a category called “reverse colonization narratives.” David M. Higgins, in his book Reverse Colonization: The Science of Fiction, Imperial Fantasy, and Alternative Victimhood, defines this category of narration as follows:
“Narratives of reverse colonization are most often seen as fictions of foreign and alien invasions that address fears about the decline of British imperial power as envisioned in the Victorian and Edwardian eras.”
Narratives of reverse colonization invite identification with the victim, which is a double-edged sword. Narratives can also cause identification with victimhood.
In Wells’ account, Tasmanians were an “inferior race” and the “War of the Worlds” reinforced (rather than challenged) the idea that racial hierarchies were engaged in a natural evolutionary struggle for supremacy. . Like “Dracula,” “War of the Worlds” presents audiences with the possibility that they are potential victims of foreign invasion or losers in an evolutionary race for racial superiority. Ask them to imagine something.
Imperial masochism and imperial criticism
Imagining oneself as a colonized victim is often the ideological core of imperial fantasies for those who benefit most from contemporary imperial conditions. In his book, Higgins uses the term “imperial masochism” to refer to the ways in which subjects reaping the benefits of empire assume the imaginary role of colonized victim in order to strengthen and expand their own agency. ” is used.
He states that in the ideology of imperial masochism, imperial practices are justified on the basis of unfettered colonial liberation, and privilege is maintained through the appropriation of victimhood. In this ideological context, the illusion that “they are coming to take what is ours” acts as a shield against the embarrassing truth that “we are already taking what is theirs right now.”
The tension between imperial masochism and imperial critique in The War of the Worlds embodies what Reeder calls the “double movement” of colonial ideology in the story of reverse colonization.
Given science fiction’s long history of intertwining with imperial fantasies, it is not surprising that imperial masochism is often supported and enabled by references and metaphors to science fiction.
As Higgins points out, the United States also has an early history of fanciful liberation stories and myths about imperial masochism. L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz (1900) is one such example. The story celebrates Dorothy as a heroic liberator who rescues a colonized race from oppressive slavery.
Philip Francis Nowlan’s novella Armageddon, 2419 A.D. (1928) is another example of American imperial fantasy. This novella imagines a distant future in which the United States has been colonized by the “Mongols” and must fight an anti-colonial revolution to establish the racial superiority of white America (“Space A story that reflects Darwin’s racial politics, but without Wells’ implicit critique of imperialism).
The intensification of imperial masochism
By the late 1960s, a cultural moment dominated by the aftermath of widespread postwar colonial liberation movements and the influence of civil rights, feminism, the Vietnam War protests, and various other countercultural challenges to authority and tradition. Among them, stories emerged that celebrated the outward conquest of the world. Science fiction has been dramatically overshadowed by stories that encourage audiences to see themselves as victims or liberators rather than colonizers.
Luke Skywalker in Star Wars (1977), Neo in The Matrix (1999), Jake Sully in Avatar (2009), Katniss Eva in The Hunger Games (2012) Dean is a few famous examples. The story of the iconic heroes of recent decades who stage a dramatic rebellion against an oppressive imperial army.
Narratives of reverse colonization are a powerful source for imperial elites to appropriate victim identities and imagine themselves as dangerous, threatened, and on the verge of succumbing to overwhelming attacks. becomes.
Subjects already enjoying social hegemony, by imagining themselves as rebels and collectively identifying with an illusory form of victimhood, struggle with economic inequality, police and military power. It can justify expansion, climate destruction, new expressions of racism, and countless other forms of violence. All said to be done in the name of safety, self-defense, and self-preservation.
Imperialism (particularly US imperialism) is fundamentally strengthened in a post-war context dominated by aggressive processes of late-capitalist globalization. Although military violence and territorial occupation continue to serve postwar imperial objectives, after World War II new methods of imperial hegemony functioned without overt emphasis on direct colonial control of foreign territories. There are many things.
Conclusion.
Photo: A scene from “Star Trek”
AH/SAB
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